The nearly 200 Alamogordo Primate Facility chimpanzees have lived through biomedical research, have the scars to prove it, and deserve peace and dignity at the end of their lives. But they are in the custody of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a federal agency funded with our tax dollars.
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Randy (above) and Fred (below) are two Alamogordo Primate Facility chimpanzees now facing cruel and ineffective invasive research at Texas Biomed. Fred's shaved chest shows part of an identification number tattoo. Photo credit: Animal Protection of New Mexico received via Freedom of Information Act request.
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The future of the Alamogordo Primate Facility chimps may lie with an Institute of Medicine (IOM) appointed committee conducting a study on “The Use of Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research.”
Nature magazine editorialized about concerns with the IOM chimp study on June 15th, 2011:
The purview of the task that the NIH has set the IOM is troubling. It contains no mention of ethical aspects of the research, and the NIH has publicly stated that this omission was deliberate. Of the 12 current members of the committee, just one is a bioethicist. The agency may wish to divorce the science from the ethics, but society at large will not accept such a distinction. Nor is it intellectually defensible…
Nature also published an extensive story, “Chimpanzee Research on Trial,” which begins at a meeting at New Iberia Research Center, a privately-owned lab that receives our tax dollars for chimpanzee breeding and research. Three federal agencies were also present in what Nature calls the “war room.” Read the whole story here.
Of the fifteen members initially appointed to the IOM chimp study committee, three have been removed for bias. The lone bioethicist to date, Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, has now been appointed to chair the committee.
RIGHT NOW, Chimps need your help to build a better study. Can you write to the IOM and ask for a truly balanced committee? Use this link to send feedback to the IOM chimp study, you can cut and paste from sample comments below. Be sure to sign and personalize your comments for maximum effect:
Subject: Taxpayers Deserve a Balanced Committee
Comments:
Dear IOM Chimp Study Committee,
I am just one person who knows that performing invasive research on chimpanzees is wrong. But the American public and citizens all over the world are looking to your expert analysis on the future use of chimpanzees in research.
Please appoint additional members to your committee who have studied chimpanzees outside of invasive research labs, who have extensive experience in alternatives to using chimpanzees in research, and who can weigh the financial and ethical costs of using chimpanzees against the benefits.
Lastly, please expand the scope and timeframe of this study. The public cannot rely on your judgment and expertise if you do not look at the whole issue, ethics and financial considerations must be taken into account. As you know, Senators Tom Udall, Tom Harkin, and Jeff Bingaman requested this study be completed in 18 months, not the six months currently allotted.
In 2011, I urge you to assure taxpayers that a fair and balanced discussion of the use of chimpanzees in research is possible.
Sincerely,
While the New York Times, L.A. Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Albuquerque Journal, and other outlets have produced balanced stories about chimpanzee research, National Public Radio aired a very skewed story in early June.
Listen to or read the whole NPR story here. Texas Public Radio’s David Martin Davies presents the incredibly biased view to Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan that lab life for chimpanzees is protected and safe. Here is a transcript excerpt:
CONAN: And is this - well, an animal rights advocate would say this is cruel inherently. Is the treatment, though, cruel?
DAVIES: Well, the way the - animal rights activists are saying that they're using invasive research on the apes. But that - and that sounds very, you know, terrible, like you're opening up the apes and looking at them. But actually, what they do is they're drawing blood, they're taking biopsies of the - of livers of the apes after they receive the treatment to see if they had any kind of liver damage.
The biopsies are done by insertion of a large needle into the side. The scientists say this is no more painful or uncomfortable to the apes than the apes when they play with each other and bite each other pretty, you know, if they roughhouse.
• Lira died at 17 after being subjected to multiple research protocols, including injections of hepatitis directly into her liver and spine. The NIH’s records on Lira state “liver and muscle damage from multiple percutaneous liver biopsies,” “chronic hair plucker,” “appears depressed,” “liver enlarged,” spleen “enlarged and friable,” brainstem “appeared enlarged and swollen with areas of liquefaction.”
• Donna, a 36-year-old ex-Air Force chimpanzee, died after carrying a miscarried fetus for almost two months. During a belated C-section, privately-owned and federally-funded laboratory The Coulston Foundation removed a liter of pus from her abdomen, and observed the dead fetus’s skull poking through her torn uterus.
• At the privately-owned laboratory Texas Biomed (formerly known as Southwest National Primate Research Center), recent USDA violations include: primate dies from hypothermia, primate subjected to necropsy while still living, primates escape and injure workers.
You can cut and paste our message below, or deliver your own message to Talk of the Nation.
Please enter your question:
I am shocked and dismayed to learn of your biased reporting in the story “The Science And Ethics Of Research On Chimps.”
Texas Public Radio’s David Martin Davies repeatedly made biased statements in this story, statements that may be explained by Mr. Davies’ recent award for journalism from the Foundation for Biomedical Research (FBR), an industry group that advocates for the unrestricted use of animals in biomedical research.
I urge “Talk of the Nation” to look again at this issue, including why the rest of the developed world and pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline have stopped invasive research with chimpanzees.
Continuing chimpanzee research will financially benefit a handful of laboratories, including Texas Biomed. But there is a lack of scientific documentation about advancements in human health after generations of taxpayer-funded invasive research with chimpanzees. And evidence of inhumane and irresponsible treatment of chimpanzees in U.S. research labs is overwhelming.
Thank you for investing in rigorous reporting.
Sincerely,
Thank you for standing up for chimpanzees who have suffered so much. Become a member of Animal Protection of New Mexico today!
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